Five tame things my toddler claims to be scared of

Amelie’s speech is getting better by the day and we now enjoy full conversations with her. As her understanding of the world isn’t as advanced as her language, though, she comes out with some really funny things. The contrary ‘logic’ that is a key pillar of the terrible twos only serves to add to the effect.

Her latest go-to theme is fear. Well, sort of. I’m pretty sure it’s all for effect and don’t think she’s remotely bothered by any of the things below.

Here, then, are five tame things she has claimed to be scared of.

A cute animals calendar

Like most hectic families, we have a calendar to keep track of who’s due where and when. It’s important, of course, for visual things like this to be kid-friendly. You can’t go wrong with cute animals – or so we thought.

This month’s picture features a yawning cat. But apparently, it’s not yawning. It’s opening its mouth to eat ants. I don’t know whether Amelie is concerned about the plight of the moggy or the insects here, but we’ve had to cover it up to stop her going on about it.

Woodlice

We live in a house that’s well over a century old, so certain minibeasts find their way in now and then. These include the apparently innocuous woodlouse. Yesterday, she hurtled out of the dining room as if being pursued by a bear.

Just as I was about to ask what she was doing, she yelled: “Amelie’s afraid of woodlice!” Funnily enough, Dylan did something similar at the same age. Shakespeare clearly missed a trick with that famous stage direction.

Clutter

If we have the temerity to look at something other than her for more than a minute, Amelie will quickly locate the nearest pile of clutter in the house. This is easy, as we still need to do rather a lot on the Swedish Death Cleaning front.

She’ll stand behind it, claim to be stuck and call out Penelope Pitstop style to be rescued. This is also deployed as an effective time-wasting tactic at bedtime. We must have a cull of cuddly toys…

A cartoon dragon

Okay, dragons are a bit scarier than crustaceans and yawning felines, but this particular one was on Ben and Holly’s Little Kingdom. It looks friendly and is called Dave, for goodness sake!

Amelie watched the episode happily enough and seemed to enjoy it. But come bedtime, the fictional firebreather was right up there on her list of reasons for not wanting to go to sleep.

Yoghurt

Yes. Yoghurt. That famously volatile dessert. She loves the things and merrily scoffs them down with no complaint. With a few exceptions, of course. Her favourite flavour fluctuates wildly, so getting one for her is a lottery.

If we fail to select the one she has in mind on the first attempt – we’re psychic, apparently – she doesn’t want any of them. And, yes. Her latest proffered reason for declining them all is that she’s afraid of them.